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THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



phenomena parallel with the " after-glows " 

 of 1883-'84. A scries of these glows, ob- 

 served in 1636, was ascribed at the time to 

 the eruption of Ilecla, which occurred in 

 that year. From May to September, 1783, 

 the heavens were illuminated by a constant 

 red glow, and the sun had the appearance 

 of a faint disk. This was attributed to a 

 violent eruption of the Skaptar Jokul, Ice- 

 land, which occurred in the spring of the 

 Bame. year. 



A CORRESPONDKNT of " Nature," who has 

 tried various schemes of automatic ventila- 

 tion and found tliem all to fail at times, 

 though usually working well, announces bis 

 conclusion that there is no rule in the mat- 

 ter without exception. This n)eans that 

 ventilation should receive personal atten- 

 tion, and be always under observation. 



OBITUARY NOTES. 



Dr. Thomas Andrews, an Irish chemist, 

 died about the 1st of December, 1885, in 

 the seventy-second year of his age. He was 

 born in Belfast in 1813. In preparing him- 

 self for the medical profession he studied 

 chemistry under several eminent masters. 

 He took a part, as vice-president, in the 

 organization of the Northern College, now 

 Queen's College, Belfast, and was its first 

 Professor of Chemistry, His name is iden- 

 tified with many most important investiga- 

 tions and discoveries. Among them are the 

 composition of the blood of cholera-patients ; 

 the determination of heat evolved during 

 chemical action ; the true nature of ozone, 

 in which he established the theory now uni- 

 versally held ; and the continuity of the 

 liquid and gaseous states of matter, a series 

 of investigations which led directly up to 

 Pictet's, Caiiletet's, "Wroblewski's, and oth- 

 ers', successful liquefaction of all the gases. 



Xavier UtLEsnERGER, a Swiss paleon- 

 tologist, died recently at Ueberlingen, on the 

 Lake of Constance, seventy-nine years old. 

 He was the discoverer of the lake villages 

 at Nussdorf, Maurach, Uhldingen, and Sip- 

 plingen ; and he obtained a large collection 

 of prehistoric objects, which is preserved 

 at Stuttgart. 



The death is announced, at the age of 

 eighty years, of Professor Giuseppe Ponzi, 

 the Italian geologist. 



Professor Charles E. Hamlin, of the 

 Agassiz Museum of Natural History, died at 

 Cambridge on the 3d of January. He was 

 about sixty years old. 



Alfred Tribe, an English chemist, died 

 November 26, 1885, aged forty-six years. 

 He acquired his first knowledge of chem- 

 istry when, as a boy, waiting on the students 

 at the Royal College, he repeated some of 



the experiments he saw performed, in the 

 kitchen at home. He was assistant to Dr. 

 J. H. Gladstone for twenty years, and head 

 of his laboratory. He was Demonstrator of 

 Chemistry at St. Thomas's Hospital, Lect- 

 urer on Metallurgy at the National Dental 

 Hospital, and Lecturer on Chemistry and 

 Director of Practical Chemistry in Dulwich 

 College. He was an assiduous investigator, 

 and published a large number of papers, 

 some under his own name, and others in 

 conjunction with Dr. Gladstone. 



Mr. Edwin Ormond Brown, Assistant 

 Chemist to the British War Department, 

 died December 12th. He had been con- 

 nected with the arsenal at Woolwich for 

 about thirty years, and had been instru- 

 mental in the improvement of gun-cotton 

 and other explosives. 



Daniel David Beth, the chief of the 

 Dutch African Expedition, died at Katum- 

 bclla, on the 19th of May, 1885. He took 

 part in an expedition to the interior of Su- 

 matra, IS?"/ to 1879, where he became in- 

 terested in the examination and prospective 

 development of the coal-fields of the island. 

 In 1882 he busied himself to secure a proper 

 representation of the colonial products at 

 the Amsterdam Exposition. In 1884 he 

 started on his African expedition, which 

 had especial reference to the Kunene River, 

 and the mountain-range lying north and 

 west of it. 



Dr. Samuel Bir.cn, the chief of British 

 Egyptologists, and founder and President of 

 the Society of Biblical Archeology, died De- 

 cember 27th. He was born in 1813, and was 

 appointed to the Department of Antiquities 

 in the British Museum in 1836. He was at 

 first specially interested in Chinese antiqui- 

 ties, but, without giving up his tastes in that 

 direction, became pre-eminently an Egyptol- 

 ogist. Besides preparing numerous works 

 and papers of his own, he contributed a 

 translation of the " Book of the Dead," a 

 dictionary of hieroglyphics, and a grammar 

 to Bunsen's great work on Egypt. He was 

 also connected, officially and personally, with 

 the publication of " Records of the Past," 

 twelve volumes of translations of the more 

 important texts from the Egyptian and As- 

 syrian monuments. 



M. Louis Rene Tulasne, a French my- 

 cologist, whose fame would have been great- 

 er had he been less modest and enjoyed 

 better health, died at Hy^res on the 22d of 

 December, 1885. He became a member of 

 the French Academy in 1854, but was forced 

 by his delicate constitution to retire from 

 active life in 1864. During the twenty-five 

 years to which his work was limited, he 

 made many important investigations in the 

 fungi and the lichens, the science of which, 

 it is said, he reformed as well as augmented. 



